Only Each Other
by Nahterpie
Summary: Lan Fan has been struggling with her feelings lately, but she's got more to worry about when Greed is brought back to life using Alkahestry and she's tasked with teaching him Xingese culture and how to be a Body Guard. She is not happy about it, but begins to find that a shared loneliness can bring even the most unlikely people together. [Greed x Lan Fan]


This story has been floating around my imagination since I first finished watching Brotherhood but I've never really felt up to the challenge of writing it until now. My headcanon Xing is based on both real life Ancient China (thanks Wikipedia) and bits I've made up. There will be hints of one-sided Lan Fan x Ling and one-sided Greed x Ling throughout, but ultimately this is a Greed x Lan Fan story.

I love these three so much it's not even funny.

Only the first chapter is mostly in first person, the rest is in third.

Post-Brotherhood / Manga

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Pairing: GreedFan (Greed x Lan Fan)  
Anime:Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood

Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist or any of the characters.

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Only Each Other

 _How do you start a diary? I've never had one before, so I don't really know what to write. To be honest, I feel a little strange sitting here writing as if I'm in a conversation with a book. Should I introduce myself first?_

 _Lan Fan, Aged 19, Personal Bodyguard to His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Xing._

 _I wish I had asked Princess Chang more about what goes into a diary. She told me to write down my thoughts and feelings, and what has happened in my day - but many of my days are the same, and as for my thoughts and feelings... They are private. Even for a diary that only I will ever read._

 _I'm only doing this because I don't want anything to interfere with my job as a Guard. The headaches were getting far worse recently, and the day I couldn't even get out of bed without the pounding in my temples making the world spin was the day I finally went to see what I could do about the pain. I had been hoping it would go away - just something caused by stress and a lack of sleep (I'm not the only Bodyguard of The Imperial Majesty, but I want to be on duty at all times possible) but they've been getting more frequent, and after he..._ _ **what happened yesterday**_ _I feel as if my head might burst. I am lucky that Princess Chang is visiting the Royal Palace for a few days at the moment, because I could ask her discreetly if she could do anything for my headaches, without feeling that a rumour of my illness or incompetence would be spread throughout the Palace... I know there are many here that would be only too happy to have grounds for me to leave to my post. They think that because I wear a mask and keep to the shadows I don't hear them whispering about my ability to protect His Majesty the Emperor. Automail is rare in Xing, in fact I'm the only person in the Imperial City with any, so they see it as something foreign and strange - I've heard Noblewomen scoff behind their hands and silks about my 'Amestrian Curse'._

 _They weren't there. They will never know. Getting that arm back was the best decision I ever made. The pain and despair of feeling useless and failing in my duties was a thousand times worse than any surgery I had. I will never feel ashamed of my decisions. I will never regret them. I only wish to remain by his side._

Lan Fan leant back in her wooden chair and the legs creaked slightly at the shift in weight. She hadn't realised she had been bent over so close to the paper, ink furiously scratched across its surface, and frowned a little at how the words became scruffier and more personal in her haste to write them down. The candlelight flickered as she moved, and reflected brightly off her automail arm as she placed the pen down and rubbed the shoulder joint gently, glad that she was right handed. After a moment Lan Fan picked up the pen, took a deep breath of the sweet Xingese night air, scribbled over the last sentence and began again next to it.

 _I only wish to remain as a loyal servant of the Imperial Majesty._

 _Princess Chang is only in the Imperial City for a few more days, until he... until_ _ **the situation**_ _is stable. She and Alphonse Elric are living with the Chang Clan in the countryside at the moment, while they both help to stabilise the situation there, though she spent some time in Amestris learning healing alchemy and medicine from Doctor Marcoh. When I told her about my headaches she looked me up and down and put her hands on her hips with a scowl that reminded me of the Ishvalan man with the scar on his face. She said I was pushing myself too hard and making it worse by keeping too much bottled up inside. I denied it, but she closed her eyes, pulled a face, and told me that my Qi was a pushed down mess of loyalty and loneliness and chaos, all pushed so far down into myself that she had to concentrate to feel them there at all. The trapped emotions were darkening my Qi and straining my body - causing my headaches._

 _At first she told me to talk to someone, to unload my burden and to take more time off to rest, but I'm sure she realised that it was not an option before she'd even finished saying it. Grandfather was the only one I would ever speak to about myself, and he was the one who taught me to keep my feelings under better control so they wouldn't interfere with my job. I would be letting him down if I can't learn to keep my emotions better in check, and I would dishonour the legacy he has left me as a Bodyguard if I let them overwhelm me in this way. This morning she gave me this blank book and a pen and told me that the only way I was going to get rid of my headaches and clear up my Qi was to accept and write about my thoughts, feelings and experiences._

 _I don't get to speak very much anymore - I think my talk with Princess Chang is the longest conversation I've had in a long time - since my role now is one of shadows and isolation, and even when I am surrounded by people in the Palace I am always alone. I am behind doors, or on roof tops or silently walking corridors, never acknowledging the other Guards or servants. I keep my mask on at all times when I'm not in my own room, so that I am allowed to look across at the members of the Imperial Court, visiting Clan Nobles or cousins of the Yao Clan living within the walls, as the darkness of the porcelain hides my eyes. I need to be able to observe the behaviour of anyone entering the Palace for suspicious actions or faces I do not recognise, so the mask always stays on. Though even with the mask I am not allowed to look at The Emperor._

 _'The Emperor of Xing is above us all, and none may look upon him.'_

 _I escort the Imperial Majesty through the Palace, as assassin attacks are still possible, but I am always never more or less than four paces behind. We haven't even exchanged words for months. At first there would be the odd exchanged glance, or a quick 'how are you' when nobody was looking, and once The Emperor even gave me a flower from the Imperial Garden... But now Xing is in a difficult place - the old Clan divisions and rankings that caused so much conflict and depravity are being slowly worn down and a new era of peace and unity is able to take its place. It rests on a knife edge right now, where it could fall one way or the other, and The Imperial Majesty must be extremely careful to retain the favour of the Court and Clan Leaders... So I stay silent and alone._

Lan Fan sighed and read the last sentence back to herself over and over. Grandfather would be so disappointed in her for writing such personal things. Though their relationship had stayed mostly professional when they worked together, he had been a constant presence in her life and she still missed him. She was sure he would tell her she had no time to feel lonely, and that serving The Emperor was all they had been working towards, so she should continue to do her duty in the best way she can. Lan Fan took a deep breath and scribbled over her last few words, beginning again underneath.

 _I didn't intend to write about His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Xing, I actually wanted to write about what happened yesterday: The Homunculus Greed is alive. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say the_ _ **ex-Homunculus**_ _Greed is alive (though I don't regard him as any less of a monster). It still seems impossible, even now as I'm writing it, but there he is in the flesh._

 _I don't know the whole story, but Princess Chang spoke to me about it while she gave me the diary this morning; she said The Emperor had been receiving regular herbal medicines and treatment for an increasing fatigue and weakness, and that was why she had spent some time learning Amestrian Alchemy and medicine from Doctor Marcoh, hoping she would find some way to help. Then on her last visit to the Royal Palace about a week ago she noticed a change in The Emperor's Qi (I was surprised and told her I hadn't felt any differences, but she just chirped that her Qi Sense is much more developed than mine from her Alkahestry training) and realised that it felt similar to the Philosophers Stones, though on a much smaller scale. She went away to discuss it with Edward and Alphonse Elric and the three of them arrived at the Palace a couple of days ago on the new desert train line. I was told that they were here on 'official State Alchemist business', but now I know that was just a cover to keep the Court calm and unaware of the Emperor's bad health, as the best way to guarantee admittance into the Imperial City is if you have wealth or power, and while Edward Elric is no longer an active State Alchemist his title still stands. At least now I understand why their Qi felt troubled and their behaviour seemed so suspiciously serious._

 _I'm not even going to pretend to understand what the Princess told me about how it was possible, Alchemy and Alkahestry are far beyond me, but she told me that The Emperor's recent weakness was because a piece of Greed's soul remained inside him from the fight on the Promised Day and that it was slowly repairing itself sub-consciously using his soul as a power source - like a Philosophers Stone. She enlisted the Elric brothers to help with getting rid of the traces of Greed, but The Imperial Majesty declined and asked for them to find a way to restore his soul instead. I was terrified that this was going to mean they performed Human Transmutation again, but through a combination of Alchemy and Alkahestry they were able to use the power of the two souls to split and heal them, forming his now 'human' body._

 _Apparently he's as human as anyone else now - he's got no powers or other souls inside him besides his own. Yet he still looks identical to The Emperor. Exactly how he looked on that day a year ago._

 _I don't know if I can accept that monster as a human, even if he did join up with us at the end, because of what he did when he stole the body of the then-Prince of Xing, using it to only forward his own goals and plans. I spent so long agonising over what that monster could be doing in his stolen body, or if we were ever going to meet again._

 _I think Alphonse Elric could see my concerns and my distaste for what they had done (he is so sensitive to others feelings I really don't think it will take him long to develop a Qi Sense as powerful as Princess Chang's) as he tried to assure me that Greed's body wasn't created from nothing but healed using Alkahestry, from his soul into a human form. Did that mean his soul recognised that body as his own? That The Emperor's body was even more natural to Greed than the old one the Elric brothers described, that had been created specifically for him? He tried to reassure me that the other Homunculus once called Pride now also has a human body that wasn't formed using human transmutation, and is now living a completely normal life._

 _But I just..._

 _It's just all so strange. I don't know how I feel. How should I feel?_

 _The Imperial Majesty continued with his duties after this, and I was completely unaware that anything had happened until Princess Chang told me this morning. I had been patrolling the hallways of the Outer Court most of the day, as the Princess told me to let another of the Guards take over my Body Guard duty to help with my headaches, and now I can't help but feel as if she was intentionally getting rid of me, knowing I would be unhappy about what they did. I wouldn't be surprised if there was no Body Guard at all that morning, so they could keep it all a secret from anyone in the Palace - using a room in the Inner Court nobody else would dare enter. I just can't believe something this significant was kept from me. I don't know... do I feel betrayed? Confused?_

 _What's the point in having a diary to write my feelings in, if I don't understand them?_

 _And that's not even the worst part. It's impossible to hide Greed's identical appearance to The Emperor, so the only safe place to keep him in the whole Palace is with the one resident who has already seen his face. And while I wanted to say no, absolutely no, not in my room, when the Princess told me it was His request and to tell me 'thank you and I'm sorry', all the words left me and I simply nodded. My duty is to serve The Imperial Majesty no matter what, in any way that I can, so if that means taking that monster into my room and watching out for his safety, then I will do that job to the best of my ability..._

 _I am lucky that my room is larger than the others around me, where the other female servants stay. I am the only female Guard, and the Personal Body Guard of the Imperial Majesty, so it is a size reflecting my rank among the Palace servants. Greed is sleeping on a bed Princess Chang helped to set up here before she went to her room in the Inner Court, while the Elric brothers stay in an inn within the Imperial City, not too far from the Palace. I asked how long Greed will sleep for, but she couldn't tell me. Now it's just about waiting and seeing what happens I suppose, but I_

Lan Fan stopped writing. Her loose hair whipped around as she turned to look across the room, one hand already reaching to the hidden knife strapped under her desk. The side of the room Greed was sleeping in was deep in the shadows cast from her small candle, but she had heard movement. Lifting the knife in front of her in a defensive position the Guard rose from her chair slowly, always alert and ready for an attack even in the middle of the night. She wore only loose black bottoms and bandage bindings on her chest, but that gave her more freedom of movement anyway, a Guard had no time to feel a sense of modesty. There was still only Greed's strange Qi in the room, but she continued advancing slowly. When she was close enough to make out his shape in the gloom she realised his hand was rubbing his eyes. Her knife lowered a fraction. Greed groaned loudly, sitting up, and rubbed a hand at the back of his neck.

"Ugh, what the hell happened?"

He was awake.


End file.
